Executive coaching is a confidential, contracted conversation with one leader. It is not mentoring (“I did this, so should you”), not consulting (a team that ships a plan), and not therapy.
A useful first meeting answers three questions: what the leader wants to be able to do that they cannot do now, how often they will meet, and what stays off the record. If those answers are vague, wait. A vague brief produces a vague engagement, and then someone asks for a scorecard to prove the fee was real.
Chief Executives is a booking agency for that kind of work. It presents coaches. If you want references, ask for them privately.
What you are buying
You are buying a series. Not a speech, not a workshop, and not a person who will join the executive team.
The series has a written scope, a cadence you can actually keep, and an end point or a review. The coach does not take a seat in the business. They do not draft the board paper. They do not run the function while you “get up to speed.” They sit with you so you can decide what you will do in the rooms that are already yours.
That is why the menu of conversations is short: one-to-one coaching, role transitions, and a sounding board. Each is still one executive and one coach. None of them is a transformation programme.
If you cannot say the brief in a sentence you would keep, you do not yet have work to book. Write it first. That standard is a brief you can actually keep.
What you are not buying
You are not buying a mentor’s war stories as a substitute for your judgment. The operating record is on the about page. It is not a licence to tell you to copy that tour.
You are not buying a consulting team. If you need a plan shipped, hire the people who ship plans. Coaching will not pretend to be that.
You are not buying therapy. Distress belongs with a clinician. A coach who cannot tell the difference will do harm and call it depth.
You are not buying a script for the board, a guarantee of retention, or a public case study. A board paper is not a confession, and a coaching site is not a results brochure.
The first meeting has one job
The first meeting is not a sample of the work. It is a test of whether the work can be contracted.
I want to hear the seat, the stretch of time, and the conversation the leader cannot have inside the building. I want to hear who is paying and what that person may be told. If the chair will ask how it is going, the rule belongs in the brief on day one — see when the chair asks how coaching is going.
If the leader wants “presence” or “to be a better leader,” I will ask for an observable sentence. If they cannot produce one, we wait. I would rather lose a booking than start a series around a mood.
Confidentiality is a design, not a mood
Confidentiality is not a feeling in the room. It is a written rule about process and content.
Process can be shared: we are meeting, we are on scope, the review is in March. Content stays with the executive unless they take a point into another relationship themselves. Safety and legal exceptions are named in advance. They are not a corridor for “I thought the chair should know.”
If that design cannot be agreed, do not start. An hour that leaks will teach the executive to perform. Performed coaching is not cheap. It is waste.
A takeaway you can keep
| You are buying | You are not buying |
|---|---|
| A confidential series with one executive | A transformation programme with a slide deck |
| A written scope, cadence, and end point | A public scorecard of promotions |
| A place to think before a hard call | A script written for the board |
| Process the sponsor can hear | Content the sponsor can file |
If the work fits, read coaching and who is available to book. Fees and fit are agreed in writing.
If you have a brief you can keep, enquire to book a coach.